How Otto Dix’s works ended up in Canadian museums

Adolf Hitler started organizing major campaigns to loot avant-garde works of art as soon as he came to power as Chancellor of the National Socialist Party in 1933.

Labelled “degenerate,” the works were first confiscated from German museums and then from private collections. Jewish art owners, in particular, were targeted. When the Second World War broke out, the occupied countries were then stripped of their cultural property.

An initial attempt at restitution was undertaken when the war ended, but priority was given to rebuilding the countries that had suffered heavy damage. Real measures to return these works to their owners or their families were not put in place until the 1990s.

Works resurface

But even today, thousands of works remain untraceable or are unjustly held in museums or private collections. It’s not uncommon to hear new incredible stories of works that have reappeared after more than 80 years, such as this painting by Giuseppe Ghislandi spotted in August on the website of a real estate agency selling a house in Argentina.

The painting had been looted by the Nazis from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam during the occupation.

Most institutions now have policies governing research into the provenance of works in their collections, with a particular focus on the period from 1933 to 1945.

In this context, some works have had surprising trajectories. Fascinated by the issue of looting and the context of the Second World War, I was able to observe this during my graduate research in art history.

I became interested in the stories of two portraits painted by Otto Dix, the German New Objectivity artist who was an anti-war leftist. Both paintings are now preserved in Canadian museum collections. The journey of one has been traced, while the other remains more mysterious.

Giving Québec the artistic credibility

The first, “Portrait of Lawyer Hugo Simons”, was painted by Dix in 1925 for his friend Hugo Simons, who had helped him win a lawsuit. When the war broke out in 1939, Simons and his Jewish family fled Nazi Germany to settle in Montréal. Simons kept the painting throughout his life.

Simons died in 1958, and in 1992 the family decided to sell the painting after a retroactive tax assessment was made of its value. The work was then offered to the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) for half its actual value as a token of gratitude to the host city. While more than half of Dix’s works disappeared or were destroyed during the war, this one survived in perfect condition.

Difficult negotiations followed between the MMFA and the federal government, which was reluctant to grant a loan for its acquisition.

The affair quickly became public knowledge in the media. Acquiring the painting would not only allow the MMFA to add a masterpiece to its collection, but also help give Québec the artistic credibility it was hoping to build.

Thanks to additional private and public funding, the painting finally entered the MMFA’s collection in 1993 and went on to become a symbol Québec’s artistic legitimacy.

The mystery of Dr. Stadelmann

The history of the second painting, “Portrait of Dr. Heinrich Stadelmann”, is less clear. Now housed at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto, the painting was originally commissioned by Stadelmann himself in 1922.

A Dresden psychiatrist renowned for his erudition and eccentricity, he was also a fervent admirer of the avant-garde. The portrait, which seems to borrow features from a macabre Friedrich Nietzsche, reflects this.

Unlike Simons, Stadelmann never set foot in Canada. So what is the painting doing in the AGO? At first glance, there is no explanation. The label simply reads: “Anonymous gift, 1969; donated by the Ontario Heritage Foundation, 1988.”

With the exception of a short period spent outside Dresden during the bombings, Stadelmann always remained there and is believed to have continued painting until his death in 1948. He does not appear to have had any particular financial needs that would explain the sale or transfer of his portrait.

However, archival research reveals that the work may also have belonged to William (born Wilhelm) Landmann, a doctor of physics. A Jew, he also fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and settled in Toronto with his family. An art collector, he is believed to have acquired most of his works between 1920 and 1935. His collection includes pieces by Marc Chagall, Georg Grosz, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Otto Müller, Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein and Fernand Léger.

Landmann was himself a victim of Nazi looting. When he emigrated to Canada, he took only part of his collection with him, leaving the rest in storage in Europe, notably in the vaults of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and in Swiss warehouses.

He recovered some of it in 1946, but several works remain untraceable. Even today, they are listed in the Lost Art Database, where they are catalogued as cultural property confiscated from persecuted people.

Mysteries abound

No one knows whether Stadelmann’s portrait arrived in Canada with Landmann in 1939 or whether it was part of the batch of works recovered in 1946. What we do know is that Landmann was actively involved in Toronto’s art scene. He regularly loaned works for exhibitions at the AGO, and Stadelmann’s portrait was hung twice: in 1946 and 1948.

A photograph from the archives shows the back of the painting. The number “621” is crudely inscribed in black in the upper right corner of the frame. The title of the portrait is also there, but with an error: “Ten, 22, Dr. Heinrich Stadelmann.” The “C” in Heinrich is missing. Who wrote this number and incorrect title? And why did this happen?

Landmann knew the art market well. He sold some of his works to such important institutions as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Dominion Gallery in Montreal.

The decision to donate the portrait to the Ontario Heritage Foundation, rather than directly to the AGO, is also curious, all the more so because the year of the donation, 1969, corresponds to the year of Dix’s death.

And there’s another coincidence: in 1988, when the work was finally transferred to the AGO, it was less than a year after Landmann’s death. Why did the foundation keep the painting for 19 years before giving it away?

Even together, these elements do not prove that the work was looted, but they are enough to raise the question.

More Provenance research needed

Studying the trajectories of these two paintings shows how looting may have influenced the fate of works that would probably never have left Germany otherwise.

While the “Portrait of Lawyer Hugo Simons” has become a flagship work of the MMFA, a mystery continues to surround the “Portrait of Dr. Heinrich Stadelmann,” held by the AGO.

Provenance research is still underdeveloped in Canada, especially compared to Europe and the United States.

However, this case study demonstrates the relevance of undertaking such investigations: they don’t just reveal the grey areas around certain works, they also contribute to a better understanding of cultural memory and the responsibilities of museum institutions.